MARK CALJOUW, PETER J.M. NAS AND PRATIWO Flooding in Jakarta Towards a blue city with improved water management Sunday, 27 January 2002, a large flood swept down on Jakarta and inundated several parts of the city.1 From the evening of 27 January to the morning of 28 January rain came streaming down, and the dike south of Jakarta broke. The pungent black water, with a hefty cargo of garbage, poured onto the main roads to Bogor, Kramat Jati and East Jakarta. In North Jakarta, in Kelurahan Pejagalan, Kecamatan Penjaringan, the flooding or banjir hit at midnight and continued until five o’clock in the morning, reaching levels as high as 20 cm. Even harder hit was Kelurahan Kapuk Muara, inundated with 70 cm of water.2 In West Jakarta the flood invaded houses and main thoroughfares. At Kelurahan Tanjung Duren Utara the waters rose 120 cm after the dike con- taining the Sekretaris and Gendong Rivers gave way, while the water at Tomang Barat Reservoir could no longer be controlled. River water spread over the housing estates and urban kampongs of West Jakarta. Daan Mogot Street and the housing in its vicinity were the first to be reached by the giant flood. Cars had to be evacuated before being overwhelmed by the deluge, and all furniture on the ground floor of two-storey houses had to be moved 1 This article is based on personal experience with floods in Jakarta, interviews with experts, and the study of historical material, newspapers, and official reports. 2 ‘Hujan lebat guyur Jakarta sejumlah permukiman tergenang’, Suara Pembaruan, 28-1-2003. MARK CALJOUW is Project Engineer at Witteveen and Bos Consultant Engineers, the Netherlands. He graduated in Civil Engineering at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. His main fields of academic interest are coastal and river engineering. He is the author of S.G.J. Aarninkhof, Ian L. Turner, Thomas D.T. Dronkers, M. Caljouw, Leann Nipius, ‘A video-based technique for mapping intertidal beach bathymetry’, Coastal Engineering 49, 2003, pp. 275-89. PETER J.M. NAS is Professor at Leiden University, teaching in the departments of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, and Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia and Oceania. His main fields of interest are urban anthropology and development sociology. He is (with Reimar Schefold and Gaudenz Domenig) the editor of Indonesian houses, Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003 and the editor of Directors of urban change in Asia, London: Routledge, 2005. PRATIWO is an urban and regional planner. He obtained his PhD degree at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Specializing in Chinese architecture in Java and urban development in Kalimantan, he is the author of ‘Dissension in the jungle of Kalimantan’, Journal of Southeast Asian Architecture, (September 1998) and (with Peter J.M. Nas), ‘Jakarta conflicting directions’, in: Peter J.M. Nas (ed.), Directors of urban change in Asia, London: Routledge, 2005. Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:31:51AM Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) 161-4 (2005):454-484 via free access © 2005 Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Caljouw 454 17-11-2005 13:21:35 Flooding in Jakarta 455 to the upper floor. Sometimes furniture had to be perched precariously on the roofs of buildings. The housing area along the West Banjir Canal turned into a large swimming pool filled with dirty, stinking water from the water- way, as there was no let-up in the rain for half a day. The park-like villa housing estate in the vicinity of Daan Mogot Street was flooded to a depth of one metre. The people who lived on this luxurious estate had to flee their houses since the floodwaters stayed there for weeks. The flood also rav- aged Kelurahan Bambu Utara (Kecamatan Pal Merah) where more than 385 houses were standing in 15 cm of water. A number of streets in West Jakarta, such as Pesing (Kecamatan Grogol Petamburan), Kedoya Street (Kecamatan Kebon Jeruk), Kelapa Dua Street, and streets in the vicinity of Green Garden Duri Kepa Estate, suffered water levels 30 cm high. In South Jakarta the flood devoured Paku Buwono Street in Kebayoran Baru. It inundated the area to a depth of 30 cm. In East Jakarta the Cipinang River overflowed the whole of Kelurahan Cipinang Besar to 50 cm. Meanwhile, the dike at Kalibaru 21 km along the road to Bogor burst and the highway was covered with water half a metre deep. This caused a huge traffic jam. The water also flooded the kam- pongs behind the dike. Water one metre deep afflicted Serdang (Kecamatan Kemayoran) in Central Jakarta. During the whole day of Monday, 28 January, thousands of houses in Jakarta were inundated as rain continued to barrel down. On the other side of the city, at Cililitan and Kampung Melayu, the water reached two metres. Houses were flooded and all the inhabitants had to seek refuge on rooftops. At Pejaten a landslide on the banks of Ciliwung River propelled four houses into the flood, killing six people. So far no evacuation had taken place. The inhabitants of Jakarta thought that the flood had already reached its climax and would soon subside. People still went to work, and in spite of everything urban transportation continued to function. The city government took no action until Monday evening. Sutiyoso, Governor of Jakarta, believed that it was not necessary to declare the highest level of emergency.3 In East Jakarta the flood had seriously worsened. Cipinang River over- flowed and more houses were inundated. A luxury estate, Cipinang Indah, was flooded to a depth of two metres. Many of the houses were hurriedly abandoned by their inhabitants with not enough time to save their posses- sions. A consulting firm in the area lost all its computers, books, maps, and project data as the house was hit by a flash flood early on the morning of 29 January. The situation deteriorated when young people began demanding money from passers-by. These were groups of young gangsters who forced people to hand over their cash, an unusual occurrence in Jakarta. 3 ‘Banjir genangi Jakarta ribuan penduduk mengungsi’, Kompas, 29-1-2003. Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:31:51AM via free access Caljouw 455 17-11-2005 13:21:35 456 Mark Caljouw, Peter J.M. Nas and Pratiwo On 30 January at four o’clock in the morning, Suratno, a soto hawker in Dewi Sartika Street, was awakened by his wife when the five kilograms of noodles he had recently bought at the market was already afloat in the water that had unexpectedly entered the ground floor of their temporary two- by-two-metre house. Suratno hurried to take his small television upstairs because the water level was rising fast. The whole family was in a state of panic trying to save its possessions from the flood. Then suddenly the elec- tricity went out and darkness prevailed everywhere.4 By now, the flood had become a serious problem, as more than three- quarters of Jakarta was under water. The city was like a giant Titan losing control when attacked by water. Traffic was at a standstill; for example, there was no movement for more than ten hours at the Kebon Jeruk Junction in West Jakarta. People had to turn off their engines and could not do anything in the middle of the traffic jam; the cars were surrounded by water like ships on the sea. Public transportation, which is normally abundant in the streets and stops everywhere, grew very scarce at the end of January and the begin- ning of February. Many inhabitants had to walk home, many of them for kilometres. In East Jakarta a group of men hijacked a minibus to take them to Pulo Gadung. The water that had first flooded only a few spots in the city, by 30 January had covered almost the whole of Jakarta. Only Menteng, Pondok Indah, and Pantai Indah Kapuk remained unaffected. More than 40,000 people were forced to flee their houses. Traffic jams occurred along Daan Mogot Street, Cengkareng and Grogol. The alternative traffic route through Semanan also became blocked. Similar traffic jams occurred at Puri Indah, Kembangan and Meruya.5 Those who had already set off for the office had to return home when they noticed that the lines of cars in the traffic jam were not moving. This was the result of the inundation of the main road to a depth of 80 cm, so that cars could no longer continue because several of them had already been caught by the water. The Cisadane River overflowed along Daan Mogot. Many vehicles were trapped on the street and could not move. An enormous traffic jam also blocked the toll road to Merak where thousands of vehicles had come to a halt for kilometres, meeting those coming from Kebon Jeruk. They were sur- rounded by floodwaters as high as 50 cm and could not budge an inch. Another traffic jam occurred in East Jakarta. The Molek River at Pondok Gede overflowed the street to a depth of one metre. Vehicles were stuck wait- ing for the water to recede. 4 ‘Kisah pilu dari daerah banjir’, Penabur, 2-1-2002. 5 ‘Banjir makin meluas’, Kompas, 30-1-2003. Downloaded from Brill.com10/04/2021 12:31:51AM via free access Caljouw 456 17-11-2005 13:21:36 Flooding in Jakarta 457 Not only did the flood create traffic jams, it wrought havoc on train and air services. At the Soekarno-Hatta Airport about 80% of flights were delayed. These were mainly domestic flights.